China angry at Australia's Dalai Lama visit

China angry at Australia's Dalai Lama visit

ABC NEWS[Friday, July 03, 2009 12:16]

By South Asia correspondent Sally Sara for AM The Dalai Lama says Tibet has been given a death sentence by the Chinese Government. (ABC) The Chinese Government has reacted angrily to an Australian parliamentary delegation's visit to meet Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, in India. It is the first time a group of Australian MPs and senators has travelled to meet the Tibetan spiritual leader in the Indian hill town of Dharamsala. (Video: Historic meeting with Dalai Lama) The Chinese Embassy in Canberra says the visit constitutes interference in China's internal affairs. The Dalai Lama says Tibet has been given a death sentence by the Chinese Government. "No freedom of speech, no freedom of press. Their own people put in dark. It is, I think, immoral," he said. The Dalai Lama spent more than an hour meeting with members of the first Australian parliamentary delegation to visit him in Dharamsala. He thanked the all party group of MPs and senators for their support. "Usually I describe our supporters not like pro-Tibetan, but rather pro-justice," he said. Labor MP Michael Danby says several members of the delegation are hoping to travel to Tibet later in the year during an official visit to China. "If the Parliament asks the Chinese Government to allow this group to go, I don't see why they shouldn't be," he said. "They would be breaking their word and I'm sure the Chinese Government wouldn't like to be seen to be doing that." The delegation expressed its support for the Dalai Lama's middle way approach of autonomy rather than independence for Tibet. The Chinese Embassy in Canberra has condemned the Australian visit, saying it constitutes interference in China's internal affairs. Fifty years after the Dalai Lama fled Tibet, more activists are continuing to arrive in Dharamsala. The Australian delegation visited a new arrivals centre and met one man who says he was shot by Chinese forces during a protest in March last year. He told the delegation he thought he was going to die because he was bleeding so heavily. On Monday, the Dalai Lama will celebrate his 74th birthday and he remains hopeful of returning home. "Even some of my friends, Tibetan, are now 90 years old. Some, even [though] they [are] also still waiting, one day [will] go back," he said. "So then I compare them who [are] already in [their] 90s. So I am a bit younger."